It's tough to predict how much you can get this year, but you should get some good offers from schools in the 16-25.

If you are willing to look at Iowa, Wisc, Ill and Minn, you shouldn't even bother with W&M, SMU or Baylor...you'll probably get a free ride from three out of those four midwestern schools and significant money from the fourth

Forget about Columbia and NYU for money, although you are in good shape to be competitive for admission there.

If you are looking for money, you need to apply to as many schools from 16-30 with the numbers you have

nobody's attacking your accomplishments at all. I just was confused about what you meant by greater diversity at publics, since I think that the top privates are pretty diverse places no matter how you define them. that's all

"B/c at a place like Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Berkeley you get a diversity of students that you surely don't get at an ivy league school"

diversity in what sense? aren't 60-85% of these students (depending on the school) from in-state? that does not seem so diverse to me. because of decent financial aid at the ivies and other psuedo-ivies, the economic diversity of students at these schools is pretty good (of course there are plenty of legacies and bluebloods also) I am not a diversity expert, but it is hard to argue that our best state universities are more diverse than the top privates.

not to advertise another board, but there was a lot of discussion on this topic on xoxohth.com under a thread called "Minnesota 1L taking q's"...just search for "minnesota" on the law front page.

Some UMN upperclassmen with differing views participated in the discussion...

My basic advice is that if you decide to attend Minnesota, you should be receptive to initially working in Minnesota after you complete your studies...about half of UMN graduates stay in the twin cities after graduating. Part of that total is self-selection, though.

there is a small window for you to gain residency after you matriculate...but you need to do a lot. you essentially need to convince them that you are going to stay in Minnesota after you graduate. You probably need to buy a house or an apt as well as other more obvious things. you also need to meet with people within the UMN administration who will gauge your interest in staying in MN long term...so it may boil down to a subjective decision

There is a chance that they may become like the other schools and not allow you to switch at all...

The difference between in state and out of state has been held constant at 10k per year so that is your max savings

It is extremely difficult to gain residency if you do not start out as a resident.

IP, we are not bad...we have an active student IP group and the school supports an IP journal...Most firms do some sort of IP work and there are local companies that need those services (3M, for example)

the median age of students in my class is 24. the age range is something like 20-40 something. you'll be on the older end, for sure, but there are few people here with kids, etc.

UMN notorious for accepting in-staters. Whoever wrote that I think is looking at high percentage of Minnesota residents in the entering class and drawing a poor conclusion. something like 40% percent of UMN students are from Minnesota, but that does not mean that they show a preference for in-staters. It just means that the majority of applicants are from MN. UMN, if anything, would probably lean towards an applicant that would give it some geographic diversity. The school is trying to increase its national reputation, so blocking out non residents would not be a smart way to effect that goal